Buys
Based on how impressed I was with staged Shakespeare productions put out by Thames TV (Macbeth and Twelfth Night), I completed my collection with their King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. And I finally found a DVD copy of Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (so I can retire my old VHS tape), but it came in a boxed set with Pacino's other indy work, Chinese Coffee and The Local Stigmatic. And just when you thought you have me figured out, I throw in Punisher War Zone. Meh, why not.
DMZ volume 7 and Northlanders volume 2 also came into my possession. I've been reading these series in trade.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: I wanted to do something special for Remembrance Day, and in lieu of a 16-gun Halo salute (which we once did), I watched Passchendaele written, directed and starred in by Paul Gross. I know it got mixed reviews, but how many Canadian WWI movies are there? It had to be this. I for one will defend it. Yes, almost half the film takes place back in Alberta, love affairs and all that, but while the romance does take a lot of room (and its music rather cloying), I didn't find it out if place I did in other historical films such as Titanic (where it trivialized the real tragedy) or Pearl Harbor (where history was completely mangled). That part of the film is about the toll war takes first and foremost, and creates a context for the ensuing action. And what action! That was one brutal war. And films should honor its soldiers more. The DVD includes only a 45-minute documentary, but it's a good one.
Police Story 2 was on Kung Fu Fridays' ticket this week, and it is definitely an inferior film to the first one. There are some cool fights and lots of pyrotechnics, and a memorable (if bizarre) villain in the deaf-mute character, but the inclusion of the bad guys from the first film - red herrings all - only puts a drain on the pacing. I do like a lot of the elements - May's continued humiliation, the crazy "Charlie's Angels"-type babes, even the ultimate pay-off to the crapper joke - but taken as a whole, they just create pace issues. Great final battle though. The DVD includes another commentary track with Bey Logan and Brett Ratner, as well as a hour's worth of extras, such as interviews, outtakes and location visits.
Big Finish Doctor Who audios: After a whole 8th Doctor season, I decided to go backwards for a little 7th Doctor action. Dust Breeding by Mike Tucker throws a lot of ideas at the earphones, but they sorta get jumbled in the wind. We have a creature living inside Munch's The Scream, sentient dust storms, screaming mad Daleks carried on the wind, the return of the dessicated Master played by Geoffrey Beevers (The Keeper of Traken), creatures pulled from the novel Storm Harvest, a guest character pulled from another audio (The Genocide Machine) and Caroline John (Liz Shaw) giving a camp performance as an Eastern European (?) art collector. Though it does give Big Finish a usable post-Ainley Master, it's a little iffy as a story. The parts are better than their sum, I'm afraid.
Ace and the Doctor are then off to Colditz (by Steve Lyons), which is historically notable for featuring David Tennant's first Doctor Who contribution (as a Nazi creep). The story is pretty good, with Ace particularly strong as she engineers an escape from the famous castle prison, and there's a very neat time paradox that has to be dealt with. It's a very good story, but I do have to criticize the sound design. There's an echoey jail cell environment that is just grating to be in, some unconvincing sound effects, annoying music and even fluffed lines that could and should have been fixed. Colditz is strong enough to overcome these technical problems, but that makes them all the more annoying.
For Doctor Who's 40th Anniversary, Big Finish featured each of their Doctors in audios named after and heavily starring villains. In each of those I listened to (Omega, Zagreus and now Master), the villain in some way took on the role of the Doctor. That really makes me curious about the fourth starring Davros. In the Master's case, the story explores the nature of evil in an interesting way and with about as much pathos as the Master's most recent appearances on television (though the "birth" of the Master is more or less contradicted). As in Dust Breeding, Geoffrey Beevers incarnates the (dual) role.
In the audios, the 5th Doctor has Egyptian princess Erimem, the 6th young-at-heart senior Evelyn and the 8th a series of new companions, most prominently Charlie. So I was keen to listen to The Harvest (by Dan Abnett) to meet the 7th Doctor's first new audio companion, Hex. After the disappointing C'rizz, I was trepidatious. I shouldn't have worried. Though not as immediately distinctive as, say, Erimem or Evelyn, Male Nurse Hex feels like a complete character thanks to the audio being using his POV and an endearing performance by Philip Olivier. The story itself has good fun with the undercover Doctor and Ace and I like its soundtrack and sound design, though the returning villains suffer one twist too many (their motives suddenly fail to stand up to scrutiny). Nice intro for a new companion nonetheless.
Hyperion to a Satyr entries this week include:
Act I Scene 2 - Enter Hamlet according to Classics Illustrated
Act I Scene 2 - Enter Hamlet according to the French Rock Opera
New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: 4 from The Time Meddler, with more to come during the week.
Someone Else's Post of the Week
Marvel Comics Swimsuit Editions... remember those? Chris Sims is splitting his time between his own blog and Comics Alliance lately, the latter site where he dishes out some of the very worst pieces of cheesecake/beefcake from those mags.
Based on how impressed I was with staged Shakespeare productions put out by Thames TV (Macbeth and Twelfth Night), I completed my collection with their King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. And I finally found a DVD copy of Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (so I can retire my old VHS tape), but it came in a boxed set with Pacino's other indy work, Chinese Coffee and The Local Stigmatic. And just when you thought you have me figured out, I throw in Punisher War Zone. Meh, why not.DMZ volume 7 and Northlanders volume 2 also came into my possession. I've been reading these series in trade.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: I wanted to do something special for Remembrance Day, and in lieu of a 16-gun Halo salute (which we once did), I watched Passchendaele written, directed and starred in by Paul Gross. I know it got mixed reviews, but how many Canadian WWI movies are there? It had to be this. I for one will defend it. Yes, almost half the film takes place back in Alberta, love affairs and all that, but while the romance does take a lot of room (and its music rather cloying), I didn't find it out if place I did in other historical films such as Titanic (where it trivialized the real tragedy) or Pearl Harbor (where history was completely mangled). That part of the film is about the toll war takes first and foremost, and creates a context for the ensuing action. And what action! That was one brutal war. And films should honor its soldiers more. The DVD includes only a 45-minute documentary, but it's a good one.
Police Story 2 was on Kung Fu Fridays' ticket this week, and it is definitely an inferior film to the first one. There are some cool fights and lots of pyrotechnics, and a memorable (if bizarre) villain in the deaf-mute character, but the inclusion of the bad guys from the first film - red herrings all - only puts a drain on the pacing. I do like a lot of the elements - May's continued humiliation, the crazy "Charlie's Angels"-type babes, even the ultimate pay-off to the crapper joke - but taken as a whole, they just create pace issues. Great final battle though. The DVD includes another commentary track with Bey Logan and Brett Ratner, as well as a hour's worth of extras, such as interviews, outtakes and location visits.
Big Finish Doctor Who audios: After a whole 8th Doctor season, I decided to go backwards for a little 7th Doctor action. Dust Breeding by Mike Tucker throws a lot of ideas at the earphones, but they sorta get jumbled in the wind. We have a creature living inside Munch's The Scream, sentient dust storms, screaming mad Daleks carried on the wind, the return of the dessicated Master played by Geoffrey Beevers (The Keeper of Traken), creatures pulled from the novel Storm Harvest, a guest character pulled from another audio (The Genocide Machine) and Caroline John (Liz Shaw) giving a camp performance as an Eastern European (?) art collector. Though it does give Big Finish a usable post-Ainley Master, it's a little iffy as a story. The parts are better than their sum, I'm afraid.
Ace and the Doctor are then off to Colditz (by Steve Lyons), which is historically notable for featuring David Tennant's first Doctor Who contribution (as a Nazi creep). The story is pretty good, with Ace particularly strong as she engineers an escape from the famous castle prison, and there's a very neat time paradox that has to be dealt with. It's a very good story, but I do have to criticize the sound design. There's an echoey jail cell environment that is just grating to be in, some unconvincing sound effects, annoying music and even fluffed lines that could and should have been fixed. Colditz is strong enough to overcome these technical problems, but that makes them all the more annoying.
For Doctor Who's 40th Anniversary, Big Finish featured each of their Doctors in audios named after and heavily starring villains. In each of those I listened to (Omega, Zagreus and now Master), the villain in some way took on the role of the Doctor. That really makes me curious about the fourth starring Davros. In the Master's case, the story explores the nature of evil in an interesting way and with about as much pathos as the Master's most recent appearances on television (though the "birth" of the Master is more or less contradicted). As in Dust Breeding, Geoffrey Beevers incarnates the (dual) role.
In the audios, the 5th Doctor has Egyptian princess Erimem, the 6th young-at-heart senior Evelyn and the 8th a series of new companions, most prominently Charlie. So I was keen to listen to The Harvest (by Dan Abnett) to meet the 7th Doctor's first new audio companion, Hex. After the disappointing C'rizz, I was trepidatious. I shouldn't have worried. Though not as immediately distinctive as, say, Erimem or Evelyn, Male Nurse Hex feels like a complete character thanks to the audio being using his POV and an endearing performance by Philip Olivier. The story itself has good fun with the undercover Doctor and Ace and I like its soundtrack and sound design, though the returning villains suffer one twist too many (their motives suddenly fail to stand up to scrutiny). Nice intro for a new companion nonetheless.Hyperion to a Satyr entries this week include:
Act I Scene 2 - Enter Hamlet according to Classics Illustrated
Act I Scene 2 - Enter Hamlet according to the French Rock Opera
New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: 4 from The Time Meddler, with more to come during the week.
Someone Else's Post of the Week
Marvel Comics Swimsuit Editions... remember those? Chris Sims is splitting his time between his own blog and Comics Alliance lately, the latter site where he dishes out some of the very worst pieces of cheesecake/beefcake from those mags.
Comments
It was fairly good, I thought. Had a cameo by a guy who fought the 7th Doctor a couple of times, too. So, that was fun.
It's about Marvel's anti-alien-invasion organization.
I have very slim interest in things related from Marvel's crossover events.
Doesn't really tie into crossovers much at all, but I can see the reluctance since, well, there's a connection. It's not bad now, and I have faith in the writer, but...
I take it back. I've got to pick it up.